Wolves in Wolf's Clothing

Gifts

Gifts are tricks bestowed by spirits, unusual magical abilities that draw on a werewolf’s half-spirit nature to accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible. They are not spells or innate abilities. They’re more like a spirit’s Numina. Individual Gifts are frequently limited in effect, but the sheer variety of Gifts that spirits are capable of teaching grants werewolves a versatile array of power.

All Gifts are taught by spirits and can be learned only by those who are part spirit themselves. In game terms, a character must have an Essence trait to be able to learn a Gift. The process of teaching a Gift is a supernatural blessing, an example of the living symbolism of the spirit world. The Gifts a spirit teaches depend not on the spirit’s traits, but on its nature. Most spirits grant Gifts with a common theme — hence the arrangement of Gifts in lists. A bullspirit (largely a spirit of strength) teaches many Gifts that have strength as a common factor, so bull-spirits are listed as teachers of the Strength Gift list. In turn, only spirits can “teach” Gifts. A werewolf cannot convey the same sort of blessing to another, even a packmate.

A beginning Werewolf character starts with three Gifts. These powers are presumed to be the first ones the werewolf learned, during and directly after her initiation into Forsaken society. These are chosen from among the lists affiliated with her auspice and tribe and from another list of the player’s choice. For more information on starting gifts, see: Character Creation

As a character grows and learns, they may continue to acquire Gifts. When Renown of any kind is increased through experience points, your character gains a new Gift worth the same number of dots. This Gift must be chosen from one of the lists for which your character has a tribe or auspice affinity. For example, if the Honour Renown of a Hunter in Darkness Cahalith increases from 1 to 2, she gets a new two-dot Gift from one of the following lists: Gibbous Moon, Glory, Inspiration, Knowledge (from her Cahalith affinity), or Elemental, Nature, Purity, or Stealth (from her Hunter in Darkness affinity). She could alternately choose two-dot a Gift from any Common Gift list.

Gifts can also be acquired in the course of the chronicle by making pacts with spirits, without raising Renown. In systems terms, you spend experience points for your character to learn a new Gift. This power can be from any list. As stated previously, the Gift cannot be of a level higher than your character’s highest primary Renown. If her highest primary Renown is 3, you can’t spend experience points for her to acquire a four-dot Gift of any kind.

The experience chart shows the point costs of acquiring Gifts without raising Renown at the same time. There is no limit to the sheer number of Gifts a werewolf can know. If you want to spend the experience, and your character can appease the appropriate spirit, she can acquire a new Gift.

Your character does not have to learn the Gifts of a given list sequentially, either. An Ithaeur may have the three-dot Ithaeur Gift: Gauntlet Cloak without first learning the two-dot Gift: Read Spirit, as long as her highest primary Renown is at least 3.

Your character might learn a new Gift without knowing its predecessors on a list when one of her Renown traits is increased. Say her Wisdom Renown is increased from 2 to 3. That means she gets a three-dot Gift from one of her auspice- or tribe-affiliated lists, too. Maybe the player decides to take the three-dot Gift from the Warding list, but her character doesn’t currently have any Gifts from that list. That’s fine. She gains the three-dot power without the 1 or 2.

Another way to learn Gifts in a list without knowing their predecessors is with experience points. In this case, the experience cost is simply higher than normal. When your character learns a Gift without first learning all those of lower level in the list, the cost to learn the new Gift increases by three experience points per Gift that is skipped. Therefore, learning a four-dot Gift from an auspice or tribal affinity list without first learning the appropriate two-dot and three-dot Gifts costs 26 experience points instead of the usual 20. Similarly, if a four-dot Gift is learned from a list that’s not affiliated with auspice or tribe (or that is not from one of the common lists) while skipping the first three Gifts on the list, the Gift costs 37 experience points instead of 28. Experience spent on skipping gifts in a list is banked, so that if you choose to buy the gift later, it costs 3 less experience. Alternatively, if a character wishes to buy multiple gifts in the same list that are higher level than one they do not have, they only have to pay to skip any particular gift once.

Skipping dots in a Gift list does not allow you to ignore your character’s highest primary Renown trait. If your character’s highest primary Renown is 4, he can’t skip ahead to a five-dot Gift in any list.

No Gifts can be skipped at character creation to learn ones of higher level. They must be taken sequentially by starting characters.